A number of virtual microscopy software packages and hardware systems, and parts thereof, are already known. For example Aperio Technologies, Inc. provide digital slide scanners, a viewing software application and information management software. Similarly digital pathology systems are provided by Omnyx LLC, Leica Microsystems and Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
While virtual microscopy is already established and virtual slide image viewing software is already available, such viewing software is not necessarily tailored to improve the efficiency with which a user may view slide images and carry out their work, for example, a pathologist making a diagnosis.
Also, virtual slide images can be captured by scanners at very high resolution and so the resulting image data files can be very large, for example hundreds of megabytes or a few gigabytes. There can therefore be issues in handling such large data files in efficient ways both to improve efficiency of use of the image viewing software by a user and also how the image viewing software itself handles such large amounts of data.
It would therefore be beneficial to provide image viewing software for virtual slides which allows a user to more efficiently use the viewing software to view slides and/or to increase the efficiency or reliability of the viewing software.